(guardian.co.uk): The next wave of innovation in book apps may come from developers working directly with authors, says David Roth-Ey, group digital director and publisher at HarperCollins UK. HarperCollins has had some success in turning books into apps already. Its iPhone and iPad app for the SAS Survival Guide has sold more than 100,000 downloads with a £3.99 price point.

(physorg.com): Hidden financial conflicts-of-interest are sneaking into published drug research through the back door, warns an international team of investigators, led by researchers from the Jewish General Hospital's Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research and McGill University in Montreal. Led by Dr. Brett Thombs and McGill graduate student Michelle Roseman, the team found that important declarations of financial conflicts-of-interest in individual drug trials disappeared when those studies were combined in meta-analyses. Their results will be published in the March 9 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

(sciencebusiness.net): While the world financial crisis put the focus on innovation for economic growth, an emerging field aims to use innovation to solve social problems, at the same time providing a much-needed way to put a value on public investment in science. Social innovation, or social entrepreneurism, has become a buzz among policymakers, scientists, and citizens throughout the world. One reason is that social challenges are becoming more numerous, important and urgent, and the cost of not solving them is increasing dramatically.

(libraryjournal.com): As evidenced by the recent commotion over HarperCollins's revision of ebook licensing terms, libraries and publishers have yet to find a lending model amenable to all the players. Just before the torrent of reaction to that story, however, the Internet Archive (IA) quietly laid two pieces of what may be the foundation for a lending model that librarians, at least, will find more hospitable. As part of its online Open Library project, the IA announced last week a new collection of some 85,000 ebooks-including many in-copyright but out-of-print titles-for exclusive lending among a "virtual consortium" of 150 public and academic libraries.

(androidapps.com): Security seems to be a major theme this week, and for Android users, it's time to crack down on the growing malware apps that are taking over the market. Dozens of applications in Google's (GOOG) Android Market have been discovered to be infected with malware called "DroidDream," which can take over a user's device, compromising their personal data. Google has taken action, having removed over 20 apps from the Market, though it's unclear whether any downloaded infected apps have been removed from devices as well.